A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations

Edited by Edward Kessler and Neil Wenborn

(ISBN-13: 9780521826921 | ISBN-10: 0521826926)

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, June 2008, 544 pp.

£18.99

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521730785

.

–>

An A to Z companion to 2,000 years of encounter between Judaism and Christianity, A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations is a pioneering work which explores and defines the many factors which characterise the historic and ongoing relationship between the two traditions. From Aaron to Zionism, the editors have brought together over 700 entries - including events, institutions, movements, people, places and publications - contributed by more than 100 internationally renowned scholars. The Dictionary offers a focus for the study and understanding of Jewish-Christian relations internationally, both within and between Judaism and Christianity. It provides a comprehensive single reference to a subject which touches on numerous areas of study.

• A fascinating overview of the history of Jewish-Christian relations • A ground-breaking work with contributions from many disciplines, including history, theology and the arts • An essential reference work for both students and scholars

Contents

Preface; The structure of the book; A-Z dictionary; Bibliography.

Reviews

‘Arguably no relationship of any two faith communities in the course of history has been both so close and so far apart as that of Jewry and Christendom. Yet this new era has both produced and affords a relationship between the two … in which both the profound differences as well as the ’shared patrimony’ can be genuinely appreciated. This Dictionary will have a special place in reflecting and facilitating this process.’ Rabbi David Rosen, President, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation, International Director of Interreligious Affairs, The American Jewish Committee

‘A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations is a required reference work for every rabbi, priest and minister. In addition, the volume is indispensable for faculty members and students of religion and history on the university campus and in seminaries. Every synagogue and church library should purchase a copy because the Dictionary is a powerful tool in educating youngsters and adult lay people.’ Rabbi A. James Rudin, Senior Interreligious Adviser to the American Jewish Committee

‘Its coverage, content, and theological position, and editorial standards all make this work an attractive addition to any specialized theological collection in college and study, and there are many threads here which merit further - and international - study.’ Reference Reviews

‘… a sane and remarkably unpolemical guide … there cannot be a more comprehensive guide available to the many highly fraught issues involved … should quickly establish itself as an essential resource for anyone concerned with Jewish-Christian relations.’ Times Literary Supplement

London summit on Jewish refugees

Jewish groups from around the world are meeting in London to highlight the plight of Jews who left their homes in Arab nations after Israel was founded. The conference organisers, Justice for Jews, say they want to ensure the story of Jewish refugees is told, alongside that of Palestinians.

The American-based group says around 850,000 Jews lived in Arab nations before Israel was founded in 1948. It says most were forced to flee due to hostility when Israel was created.

Justice for Jews, which campaigns for compensation for Jewish refugees from the Middle East, says the international community has always focused on Palestinian refugees and never given due attention to Jewish refugees.

The BBC’s Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says the subject is highly controversial as the numbers of Jews who left, and the conditions under which they left, are disputed.

He says one undisputed fact is that Jews were part of Arab societies for centuries, where they were fully integrated in their societies, until Israel was established.

Some left because they were Zionists, others because of growing hostility towards them after the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948 and 1967, and there were also those who were encouraged to leave by the new Israeli state, our analyst adds.

He says not all of them went to Israel - many went to France and America, where some of them still feel very passionately about the Arab cultures they grew up in.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7469745.stm

Published: 2008/06/23

The Shoah in Ukraine
History, Testimony, Memorialization
Bloomington (IN), Indiana University Press, 2008

cloth
$35.00
Edited by Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower

An in-depth study of the Holocaust in Ukraine

Ukraine was once home to the largest population of Jews in the Russian Empire, and on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941 it was the largest Jewish community in Europe. As such, Ukraine was one of the most important centers of Jewish life destroyed during the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1944, some 1.4 million Jews were killed there. Yet, little is known about this chapter of Holocaust history. Drawing on new archival sources from the former Soviet Union and bringing together researchers from Ukraine, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States, The Shoah in Ukraine sheds new light on the critical themes of perpetration, collaboration, Jewish-Ukrainian relations, testimony, rescue, and Holocaust remembrance in Ukraine.

Contributors are Andrej Angrick, Omer Bartov, Karel C. Berkhoff, Ray Brandon, Martin Dean, Dennis Deletant, Frank Golczewski, Alexander Kruglov, Wendy Lower, Dieter Pohl, and Timothy Snyder.

Ray Brandon, a freelance editor, translator, and researcher based in Berlin, is a former editor at Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, English edition.

Wendy Lower is Assistant Professor of History at Towson University in Maryland and Research Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. She is author of Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine.

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Table of Contents

List of Maps
Acknowledgments

Introduction / Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower
1. The Murder of Ukraine’s Jews under German Military Administration and in the Reich Commissariat Ukraine / Dieter Pohl
2. The Life and Death of Western Volhynian Jewry, 1921-1945 / Timothy Snyder
3. Shades of Grey: Reflections on Jewish-Ukrainian and German-Ukrainian Relations in Galicia / Frank Golczewski
4. Transnistria and the Romanian Solution to the “Jewish Problem” / Dennis Deletant
5. Annihilation and Labor: Jews and Thoroughfare IV in Central Ukraine / Andrej Angrick
6. “In him lies the weight of the entire administration”: Nazi Civilian Rulers and the Holocaust in Zhytomyr / Wendy Lower
7. Soviet Ethnic Germans and the Holocaust in the Reich Commissariat Ukraine, 1941-1944 / Martin Dean
8. Jewish Losses in Ukraine, 1941-1944 / Alexander Kruglov
9. Dina Pronicheva’s Story of Surviving the Babi Yar Massacre: German, Jewish, Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian Records / Karel C. Berkhoff
10. White Spaces and Black Holes: Eastern Galicia’s Past and Present / Omer Bartov

Map Sources
Selected Supplemental Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Distribution: worldwide

Publication date: 5/5/2008

Format: cloth 392 pages, 21 b&w photos, 8 maps, 7 x 10

ISBN-13: 978-0-253-35084-8

 The concrete monument has a window showing a film of two men kissing

Berlin remembers persecuted gays
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7422826.stm
27 May, 2008

Germany has inaugurated a 600,000 euro concrete memorial to honour the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.

The four-metre high monument, which has a window showing a film of two men kissing, was unveiled in Berlin.

The Nazis branded homosexuality an aberration threatening their perception of Germans as the master race, and 55,000 gay men were deemed criminals.

As many as 15,000 of those were killed in Nazi concentration camps.

Very few who survived ever received compensation from post-war German governments for the persecution they suffered.

The new memorial saw a large number of visitors after the opening.

The new memorial - which was inaugurated by Berlin’s gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit, and Germany’s Culture Minister, Bernd Neumann - is situated close to that for the six million victims of the Holocaust.

Mr Wowereit said it was typical of post-war Germany that the victims had not been honoured until now.

“This is symptomatic for a society… that did not abolish unjust verdicts, but partially continued to implement them; a society which did not acknowledge a group of people as victims, only because they chose another way of life,” he said.

Pole who saved ghetto Jews dies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7395767.stm

The Polish parliament honoured Irena Sendlerowa last year for her heroism

The death of a Polish woman who almost certainly saved the lives of 2,500 Jewish children during World War II has been announced.

Irena Sendlerowa organised the rescue of the children from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation.

She died in a Warsaw hospital at the age of 98, her daughter said.

After Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, she took great risks to help Polish Jews held by the Nazis - an act that was punishable by death.

In 1942 Irena Sendlerowa joined the Zegota resistance movement.

With the rest of her team of 20, she rescued the children between 1940 and 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, condemning its residents to death.

Saved from execution

In October 1943 she was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, but refused to give up the names of the children.

She was saved on the day of her scheduled execution after the Polish underground bribed her SS guards.

She said persuading parents to part with their loved ones was particularly traumatic.

The children were smuggled out in different ways - in ambulances, through the sewers, and once under her skirt.

The BBC’s Adam Easton in Warsaw says Irena Sendlerowa hated the term “hero”, and said her conscience was troubled because she had done so little.

Last year the Polish parliament unanimously passed a resolution honouring her for organising the “rescue of the most defenceless victims of the Nazi ideology: the Jewish children”.

In recognition of her efforts she has also been awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations, by Israel.

Jerusalem Diary: Monday 28 April

An exhibition at Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, puts Holocaust survivors at the heart the creation of an Israeli identity

REMEMBRANCE

On Thursday, Israel will mark Yom Hashoah.

The siren will sound, people will emerge from their cars, and stand still on the street. They will remember the deaths of six million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.

That memory is there to be seen and read about every day, should you wish.

Rarely is there a day when the Israeli newspapers do not make some reference - at least in passing - to the Holocaust.

It is estimated that 250,000 survivors are still alive in Israel.

Now, as Israel approaches its 60th anniversary, Israel’s Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, wants a reappraisal.

“It’s a shame,” says Yehudit Shendar, the curator of a major new exhibition about Holocaust survivors in Israel at Yad Vashem.

In pictures: Yad Vashem exhibition

“For the past year or two, the survivors have just been portrayed as ‘miskenim’, as unfortunates.”

This has happened because of long-running arguments about measly government stipends.

What Ms Shendar wants to show is that these survivors have not just been passive recipients of Israeli citizenship, but that they helped create the very symbols of Israeli identity.

“We took it for granted,” Ms Shendar told me, as we walked around the then unfinished exhibition. “The survivors came here, saw us, and wanted to emulate us; and so they deciphered the code.

“They were able in their art to give a portrayal of Israeli-ness that no-one else was able to give.”

We stopped in front of the prolific graphic art of Dan Reisinger - “colourful and ultra-modern”, Ms Shendar enthused.

We looked at images and logos and designs which he created decades ago, and which pervade Israel even today.

Reisinger survived, as a child, by spending a year hidden in a barn in Serbia. His father was deported to Hungary for forced labour, and was never seen again.

“They didn’t forget the family members that they lost,” Ms Shendar told me. “This is the drama. It’s not that they eradicated what happened; they suppressed it.”

LETTING THE WORLD KNOW

Yad Vashem is not just a museum and exhibition hall. It also contains a vast archive. It has amassed the names of 3.3 million victims.

They are meticulously cross-referenced to avoid the danger of replication. The search engine was created to handle what museum staff say are the approximately 1,500 variations of the name Isaac.

Esther Livingston helped gather the names of 300 Polish Holocaust victims

Below ground lie the vaults containing 75 million pages of documentation: the photographs, the papers, the testimony. Even now, fresh evidence is coming in.

Esther Livingston (nee Stirka Katz) is now in her mid-80s. She was a young woman in the small Polish town of Michaliszki, when it came under German occupation and was turned into a ghetto, into which Jews from the surrounding areas were crammed, and in which they died.

Esther’s recollections of those years have been collated by an American woman called Toni Rios.

“She has been very matter of fact,” Ms Rios told me. “Even when she was explaining that one of her jobs was going through the cart-loads of dead bodies, and every so often having to point out there was someone who was still alive.”

Ms Rios says that Esther has also supplied Yad Vashem with the names of more than 300 people who did not survive. These were names which Yad Vashem did not have, names to add to the 3 million in their records.

Esther is now too ill to speak.

“My mother is dying,” her daughter Helen said on the phone from her home in California. “For her it was important to let the world know that these people existed.”

WHERE WAS GOD?

One of the last exhibits you see at Yad Vashem is an excerpt from the book The Last of the Just, by Andre Schwarz-Bart.

It is painted on the wall. The opening phrase of the Mourners’ Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, is interwoven with the names of concentration camps and death camps.

The Kaddish is a paean of praise to God; its language is Aramaic rather than Hebrew; it has an instinctive rhythm and a flow: “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’may raba.”

But on this wall in Yad Vashem, Schwarz-Bart breaks that quiet, rocking rhythm.

Eastern European place names, awkwardly transliterated into Hebrew, are wedged between the ancient words of prayer.

“And praised. Auschwitz. Be. Majdanek. The Lord. Treblinka. And praised. Buchenwald. Be. Mauthausen. The Lord. Belzec. And praised. Sobibor. Be. Chelmno. The Lord. Ponary. And praised. Theresienstadt. Be. Warsaw. The Lord. Vilna. And praised. Skarzysko. Be. Bergen-Belsen. The Lord. Janow. And praised. Dora. Be. Neuengamme. The Lord. Pustkow. And praised… Amen.”

Some people read the poem as an affirmation that Jews continued to pray even in their darkest times.

What I saw on that white wall was a shattering re-statement of the question: Where was God during the Holocaust?

It is a question that still resonates through this place they call the Holy Land.

Manfred Gailus (Hg.)

Kirchliche Amtshilfe

Die Kirche und die Judenverfolgung im »Dritten Reich«

Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG
1. Auflage 2008
223 Seiten mit 15 Abb., kartoniert
19,90 € [D]
ISBN 978-3-525-55340-4

Kurzinformationen

Wie die Kirchen mit dem NS-Regime zusammenarbeiteten und nach 1945 mit dieser »Amtshilfe« umgingen.

Ausführliche Informationen

Mit der einsetzenden nationalsozialistischen Rassenpolitik fiel den Kirchen eine neue Bedeutung zu: sie verwalteten mit den Kirchenbüchern wesentliche bevölkerungsgeschichtliche Personendaten, die für die nationalsozialistische Unterscheidung zwischen »Ariern« und »Nichtariern« relevant waren. Staats- und Parteistellen verlangten »Amtshilfe«: die Auslieferung dieser Daten. Und die Kirchen kamen dieser Forderung – meist sehr bereitwillig – nach. In vielen Fällen leisteten kirchliche Mitarbeiter (Pfarrer, Kirchenbeamte u.a.) aktive Beiträge zur NS-Sippenforschung. Nicht selten entstanden besondere Kirchenbuchstellen, die rassistisch motivierte Forschung betrieben und die Resultate an staatliche Behörden und Parteistellen weiter reichten.
In sechs Regionalstudien berichtet dieser Band über unterschiedliche Formen der Zusammenarbeit von evangelischen Landeskirchen und Dienststellen von NS-Staat und NSDAP auf dem Gebiet der Urkundenausstellung für den »Ariernachweis«. Zugleich wird gezeigt, wie mit diesem brisanten Thema in der Nachkriegszeit verfahren wurde.

Beiträger

Manfred Gailus (Berlin)/ Stephan Linck (Kiel) / Hans Otte (Hannover) / Hannelore Schneider (Eisenach) / Johann Peter Wurm (Schwerin).

German Church admits aiding Nazis

Cardinal Lehmann said the Church had been “blind for too long”

Germany’s Roman Catholic Church has acknowledged the extent of its involvement in the use of forced labour during World War II.

A 700-page report says 1,000 prisoners of war and some 5,000 civilians were forced to work for the Nazis in support of the German war effort.

They were drafted from 800 Catholic-run institutions across the country.

The Church had previously paid $2m in compensation to foreign workers who the Nazis had used for forced labour.

“It should not be concealed that the Catholic Church was blind for too long to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from the whole of Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced labourers,” said Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the bishop of Mainz.

The cardinal - who stood down in January as head of the German bishops’ conference - noted that the number of forced labourers used by the Church was a small fraction of the estimated 13m compelled to work by the Nazis.

At the televised launch of the report in Mainz, the cardinal said the conditions in which people had been forced to work in Catholic institutions - such as hospitals, homes and monastery gardens - had not been as bad as elsewhere.

The Protestant Church in Germany has admitted a similar use of forced labour during the Nazi era.

A number of leading German companies, such as Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen and Siemens have, in recent years, commissioned reports into their own dubious involvement.